Baby K

I received a text message from one of Mrs K's children on Wednesday night. I seldom get text messages from Mrs K herself as usually she'd get her children to send the messages. Needless to say, being the old school type, it took me a bit more time than usual to comprehend the whole message. With phrases like "dia sroh msuk awl", "nk kne opret", "ibu cbe kol", "nak g tau sal ni le", I had to reread and reread to make sure I got the story right. Yep, this is the same family which got me confused with the "ekor jantung" SMS some time ago.

Anyway, the gist of the message was, IJN had called them and asked to bring Baby K to KL this coming Monday although originally the surgery is scheduled on the 16th. The K's had been trying to call my colleague to inform him about this but their calls never got through.

I replied the message, telling them that I'd visit them this Saturday. I think that was what they were hoping for. I learnt from my colleague that earlier on they did mention to him they may want to try ask from "Kak Zah" some financial assistance for their bus fares to go to KL (but had been postponing doing so sebab Kak Zah garang... hehehe).

We have not told them about the approved amount from our Welfare Fund. I purposely didn't want to give the money earlier, in case they end up using the money for other things before they even manage to get on the bus. And I didn't even want to tell them about it earlier either, in case they end up borrowing somebody else's money and promising to pay once they get our funds. Trust me, knowing them, they would. It's just as bad as giving them the money earlier.

I have already banked in the cheque for them this morning, but will only inform them when I visit them tomorrow. I'm not sure yet who amongst them are going to KL and who are not. But it's not school holidays yet, so I guess the other children won't be going, unless they intend to ponteng. Shah, the eldest son, who is doing odd jobs to earn some income, is reliable enough to take care of his sisters.

So I think I will bring some groceries along as well so that the children staying behind will have enough food supply in the absence of their parents.

More updates after the visit.

Buatan orang?

It was past 12 noon, and the Socso officer who came to do a random check of my Company's salary and socso files had just left my office when a call came in on my hand phone, from an unfamiliar number. Seeing that it was from a local number and not a KL number where most of those annoying telemarketing calls come from, I answered the call.

"Ini Puan Afizah ke?"

"Ya, saya." (I never care if people call me Cik or Puan or kakak or makcik or even Opah...)

"Saya nak mintak tolong sikitlah. Puan ni dari Buddies of Ipoh kan?" (with the correct pronunciation of Buddies)

The caller, whom I initially thought was a lady, was worried about a friend who had gone for a blood test at the hospital near their place, and since the result of the first test was positive, was called to come for a second test to confirm.

The caller wasn't sure if the friend had gone for further follow-ups but she suspected not. When I asked if the friend had been to the Ipoh ID clinic, the answer was no. With that simple answer, I knew the friend never went for follow-up. All HIV cases would have been referred to Ipoh GH, and so if the friend had not been to Ipoh GH, then definitely he/she had not gone for follow up.

The caller was concerned because the friend's condition seemed to have deteriorated. The caller was convinced that the friend needs counselling help. It was only during the course of our conversation did I find out that both the caller and the friend were maknyahs. Ahh, no wonder the "lenggok" of the caller's speaking style was a bit different despite sounding a lot like a lady (I am definitely much more kasar!). He/she even mentioned that the HIV+ friend was one of the most beautiful maknyahs in town.

Despite being a maknyah, the HIV+ friend had no problem being accepted by his own family. The only problem is, based on what the caller told me, I doubt the parents really knew what HIV is all about. To them, their son was a victim of "buatan orang" and they believe that the only method of treatment would have to be done by a bomoh.

The caller did mention that another reason for the friend not wanting to go for follow ups was probably because they live in such a small community, even the people working at the hospital knew the family. And so I suppose there were some sok sek sok sek going around.

Well, I advised the caller to try and coax the friend to go to the hospital. Once they can get the referral letter, all follow ups are done at the Ipoh GH and no longer at the district hospital near their place. The caller then promised to try do the necessary and then will call me back.

Maybe the parents (and the patient) are in denial. Maybe lah. Hmmmm.... and maybe another option would be for me to go visit them, disguised as a professional bomoh, jampi-jampi a bit, and then sambil menurun give instructions to the guy to go to the hospital?

 

Wahai penunggu badan yang lenguh

Jangan kau gatal nak main kotor

Jangan tunggu jangan tangguh

Nyah kau ke hospital jumpa doktor!

 

PTUIIIHH!!

(kena ludah seround lah, baru real sikit...)

And oh, and then ask for a Blackberry Storm as pengeras maybe?

A few more activities for the year...

We're already into the last 2 months of the year. How time flies. Thank goodness at the beginning of the year I didn't set any new year resolutions for myself. Otherwise I bet I haven't fulfilled it yet and the new year resolution would have to be "renewed" when the next new year comes!

I don't usually set any new year resolutions for myself. To me if I need to make some changes for myself, I don't have to wait for a new year to do so. BUT I do have a target for next year. What target? Not saying it yet, will only tell you when the time comes.

We still have a few more activities for this year. In three weeks time, an Ipoh International Friendship Night will be organised with the purpose of bringing together foreigners working or staying in or around Ipoh to meet, and to familiarise them with the various community associations and programmes available here. In line with that, the organisers will also organise an exhibition and craft fair in order for NGOs and charitable organisations to showcase their services, programmes and/or handicrafts.

Buddies have been invited to participate in the exhibition, and since it will only take not more than 3 hours, I don't have to worry about getting enough volunteers to take turns to man our booth. 2 or 3 people should suffice, although I hope more volunteers will be able to join us. I haven't asked around yet, as I want to wait for the organisers to come back to me with the final programme before I start contacting the other volunteers.

On 1st December, we plan to have our Fellowship Night (for our volunteers) at our centre. Usually we'd have the year-end dinner held at a restaurant somewhere... and there was one year we had a Deeparaya Night... but since it's getting very difficult to get as many volunteers to gather at the same time, this year we're combining the Raya/Deepa/Christmas/Year End dinner at the center with some fun activities planned. I do hope most of the volunteers can attend this time.

Then the first Sunday of December, if things go according to plan, for the first time we're organising something on our own for the World AIDS Day (usually even if we do participate in something, we'd just tumpang sekaki whatever other organisations had planned). And our plan for this year is to have an HIV Awareness Programme at an Orang Asli Village.

Other than all the above, I must remember to get in touch with the HIV families whose children are sponsored under our Education Sponsorship for Children. I will need to get the updates on the children's progress in school, after which I will need to send the reports to the various sponsors and start collecting the sponsorship amount for next year.

And oh, I'd better not wait till the very last minute to arrange for the back-to-school shopping for the children!

That means there will more calls and house visits for me to do within these 2 months...

Kapla ku pusing...

Some days I don't get any calls regarding my NGO work, some days the calls come in one after another.

Well, for the past 2 days, it seems most of the calls are regarding "my babies".

In my previous posting I mentioned about Baby K going for her heart op soon. Before she goes for her heart op, she was to undergo a minor dental surgery in Ipoh. Apparently it was done on Tuesday and the little girl was warded but Mrs K didn't call to inform me. My colleague was the one who informed me about it. When my colleague asked Mrs K why she didn't inform me about it, guess what she said?

"Tak beranilah kacau dia. Kak Zah tu garang." (in case you're wondering, no, nobody else calls me Kak Zah)

GARANG? MUAHAHA!!

Well, let it remain that way... I mean let her have that perception about me. With her history of trying to borrow money here and there, it's best if she thinks I'm garang. I think my earlier "lecture" to her about spending only on necessities must have had played a part.

We have not informed her that Buddies has approved a certain amount for her living expenses while in KL. I shall only give her the money nearer to the date. Knowing them, if they get the money now, they'd probably be spending it on other things and by the time they need to go to KL, they'd run out of money to even pay for their bus fares!

I met up with Anita and her baby yesterday. Kak Ana had brought them to Ipoh GH as Anita had defaulted the baby's earlier appointment (she went back to her home state then to get the necessary supporting documents for her IC). In addition to that, Kak Ana also just found out that Anita had finished her supply of ARV drugs and has not been taking her medication for more than 2 weeks already.

Not much problem with the baby as he was just supposed to get his blood tested to confirm that he is free from HIV. Tests so far showed that he is spared from the virus, but he will still be tested from time to time until he reaches 2 years of age.

But Anita kena sembur by SN for not being compliant with her ARV drugs. Hehehe... nasib badanlah... siapa suruh miss makan ubat...

That was yesterday. This morning a call came in from Anita's number. She then passed the call to Kak Ana who asked me about the boy's birth cert. Duh! She didn't know the boy's cert is not done yet! Kak Ana had actually brought Cek Mek and Anita's baby to the hospital for their immunisation and the nurses asked for the babies' birth certs.

After about half an hour or so, Kak Ana called again. This time to ask about Cek Mek. The nurses were asking for Cek Mek's immunisation card which according to them was supposed to have been given when the little girl was discharged from the hospital after birth. As far as I know, the only thing we got was a referral letter to transfer my Cek Mek's case to the hospital near Kak Ana's shelter home. I didn't dare confirm it though, as it was Puan Nur who took the baby and whatever documents from the pediatric ward when the little girl was discharged. I told the nurse (Kak Ana passed the phone to the nurse so she could speak direct to me) I'd have to confirm with Puan Nur and/or Sharifah first.

So yep, later this afternoon after 3 pm I called Puan Nur as I knew she usually finishes work at 3 pm. I didn't want to call Sharifah as I wasn't sure of her work shift. I didn't want to call her at work talking about her baby when her friends didn't even know she has one! Puan Nur didn't answer the phone. So I sent her a text message asking if there was any hospital card given when Cek Mek was discharged. She replied my message immediately saying there was no such thing given.

About 2 hours later another text message came from Puan Nur. She had checked with Sharifah and Sharifah confirmed that there was no immunisation card given. I decided to call Puan Nur's number. Sharifah answered the call... she just got home from work. Anyway, after confirming a few things, I told Sharifah that her baby has grown montel and is already beginning to recognise people. I told Sharifah to make it a point to visit her baby more often, otherwise the little girl may not feel comfortable with her own mother.

Before that, right after I sent a text message to Puan Nur, a call came in from a 03 number. I almost didn't answer as I thought it could be one of those telemarketing calls that have been irritating me a lot lately. But seeing that the number was not from central KL, I answered the call.

Thank goodness I did. The call came from an officer from JPN Putrajaya in response to the letter I sent earlier regarding Anita's MyKad. Yayyy, somebody's responded!

The lady told me to bring Anita to JPN Ipoh, fill in the necessary forms and submit together with the required supporting documents. She said by right there shouldn't have been any problems in the first place to get Anita's IC done (although her PR father cannot be contacted and her Singaporean mother is dead) but now that it is considered as late registration, there are additional documents we'd need to come up with. She asked why the IC was not done earlier... I couldn't really answer that. I've only known Anita just recently.

Whatever it is, the lady told me to register for the baby's birth cert first and not to worry about the mother's status or the citizenship of the baby. Just get the birth cert done. When Anita's case is settled, then we can apply to rectify the baby's birth cert to confirm his citizenship status.

My problem now is getting a supporting letter from someone who knows Anita and can confirm Anita's status. Who can I get from the list given by the JPN? Gurubesar? Anita tak sekolah. Ketua kampung? Aduh, Anita now stays at the shelter home... the ketua kampung there doesn't even know her.

We (that's Kak Ana and myself) will have to think of something. If a surat sumpah will do, then that's the easiest thing to do. Otherwise we may have to send Anita back to her hometown (in another state) again, and get her sister there to help her get the ketua kampung to sign the letter.

Ah well, at least I can start something already. But then again... aduh... kapla ku pusing...

This and that

We (Buddies) had our board meeting last night with ngam-ngam quorum. It would be a blessing if we can get full board attendance, even once a year. With everyone busy with their own work and family, and only joining Buddies on voluntary basis, it can be very difficult to gather all the volunteers under the same roof at the same time. One of our board members even tendered her resignation last night as her job requires her to travel a lot, leaving her very little time for voluntary work.

That's why after the meeting last night, when a fellow volunteer asked me if we should be roping in more Malays as volunteers in our organisation, I said I didn't care which race they're from. Malays ka... Chinese ka... Indians ka... heck, if he can get Mat Sallehs oso I don't care. We just need volunteers so that the small group of volunteers that we have don't suffer from burnout!

Nevertheless, we are still proceeding with our plan for an awareness programme at one of the Orang Asli settlements in Perak. During last month's board meeting, we assigned 2 of the board members to get more info from their contacts. One of them was to get in touch with the JHEOA. Well, he did get in touch with one officer, but got a rather disappointing reply. The officer said they are not interested to participate since there are already other agencies/organisations dealing with such matters (HIV). (Ladies & gentlemen, welcome to Malaysia... the land of "that's not my job"!) I'm not sure if that is the stand of JHEOA or just that particular officer my colleague contacted, but frankly, I initially thought going through JHEOA first would be more proper rather than just pandai-pandai sendiri. If they don't want to have any part in this, so be it. Pinggan tak retak, nasi tak dingin, orang tak hendak, kami pun tak ingin...

We still intend to go in anyway. My other colleague's friend has agreed to help us out, and we also have another volunteer who has also had the experience of going into the OA areas. In addition, I've also been liaising with someone from the COAC (Center for Orang Asli Concerns) who seem more interested in the project, and willing to help out at least in connecting us with the OA community leaders.

So yep, God-willing, we're targeting early December for our project, in conjunction with the World AIDS Day.

On another note, remember little Baby K... the hole-in-the-heart baby? Well, she's due for her heart operation in November. The cost of RM20K for the operation has already been covered, so we don't have to worry about going around asking for donations; but Mr and Mrs K still need some money to cover their cost of living in KL during the period when Baby K is hospitalised in IJN. And with the kind of jobs they have, taking leave from work means unpaid leave. In other words, less income for them next month.

But not to worry, the board has approved a certain amount from our Welfare Fund (a portion of the RM20K grant we got from Yayasan Sultan Azlan Shah before Raya has been allocated to our Welfare Fund) and the approved amount will be given to Mrs K before they leave for KL.

Hopefully there will be no other complications for the little girl before, during and after the scheduled surgery...